BNZ offers a mighty support package for farmers

Media Release For immediate release 29 September 2010

BNZ offers a mighty support package for the farmers of Southland and South Otago

The impact of the recent Southland and South Otago weather is being felt across the entire agriculture sector with farmers in the regions experiencing production and stock losses.

The timing of the storm has been disastrous, arriving when sheep farmers were well into lambing and dairy farmers had exhausted their winter supplement feeding with the expectation that their spring growth would carry stock through.

Jarred Collie, Managing Partner of BNZ Partners Business Centre Southland runs a 300 hectare sheep and beef farm is one of the many farmers affected.

“The week of cold winds and snow has taken its toll. We’ve lost around 15% of our lambs and plenty of our calves too,” says Collie.

“The areas of coastal Southland and South Otago are definitely hardest hit. Around half the lambs in those areas have died and around 20% of ewes have gone down with ‘sleepy sickness’ because of no access to feed.”

“We’ve heard figures of around half a million lambs lost but the full number of stock losses won’t be known until tailing-time in the next 6 weeks or so.”

Tony Arthur - Head of Agribusiness, BNZ Partners says, “The severity of the snow storm in Southland has hit our farming customers hard and as a result we’re offering assistance to those who are experiencing pressing working capital requirements.”

Farmers in need can contact their local Agribusiness Partner who can approve temporary assistance of up to $100,000 for “Weather Event” related costs with no application fees.

“We’ve also made the decision to suspend break fees on deposits for those who need access to emergency funds” says Arthur.

In addition, requests for overdraft extensions will be charged at base rates and evaluated on a case by case basis.

“Morale has taken a beating” says Jarred Collie, “Farmers are a resilient bunch but the loss of income combined with increased costs is hurting the whole community.”

To help get morale back up the team at BNZ Southland is shouting a group of their impacted customers to a night out at the rugby.

Approximately 300 BNZ Partners customers are expected to attend the Canterbury vs. Southland Ranfurly Shield Match at Rugby Park on Saturday 9 October.

BNZ will continue to monitor the situation closely over the next few weeks to analyse the longer term impact on cash flows and capital debt requirements.

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